A fully automatic Bluetooth turntable with a surprisingly musical sound
For many music lovers, the prospect of shelling out for various bits of highly involved and potentially incompatible kit can turn the happy notion of Sundays spent chilling with vinyl records into a real headache. Cartridge, phono stage, alignment gauge, tracking weight scales, long-nosed pliers, set of allen keys, and more? It’s a daunting technological assault course.
And yet, having done little more than plug Sony’s PS-LX310BT turntable into the wall socket, we are listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run through Bluetooth headphones as it spins in front of us. The whole set-up process takes about the time it takes to make a pot of coffee; from box to The Boss in less than five minutes.
For a while now, decks housing both a phono stage and Bluetooth have been offering a fuss-free, space-saving wireless set-up. And some of those turntables even come in at a little over the £200 mark – such as Sony’s cheapest turntable, the PS-LX310BT, that we have here.
No-nonsense design
The PS-LX310BT is a no-nonsense design that feels quite lightweight – but consider all the extras going on under that simple black plastic casework and the build is perfectly acceptable for the price.
And it feels user-friendly – no running through all four gaming categories of The Crystal Maze to see if you have what it takes to enjoy vinyl. And you can forget scouring YouTube tutorials to work out how to calibrate the tonearm; there is nothing to preset there. The buttons that operate the fully automatic arm might feel slightly clunky, but they are sufficient at this price.
The bigger question is, do you really need them? For vinyl veterans, the physical act of lifting the tonearm up, hovering over the LP and lowering it onto the record is often a ritualistic component of the experience. But those who just want to spin a tune quickly and easily will doubtless find these buttons a bonus.
Simple set-up
When it comes to set-up, apart from setting the belt to drive the platter, there is nothing to do. No need to fit and align a cartridge, set the tracking force, set the correct anti-skate or use a test LP to fine tune before you get to play your record collection.
Provided you have fitted the belt around the motor pulley and placed the platter on the main bearing, the unit simply requires you to remove the cover from the stylus and press ‘start’.
Take care when you first remove that stylus cover – the delicate assembly came away in our hands, though the
